Actor, Theater-maker.
Hi, I'm Maia! With roots from Vietnam, I grew up in Warsaw, Poland.
I am currently based in San Diego, California, pursuing my MFA in Acting from UCSD.
Maia Nguyen is an actor and theater-maker whose work lives at the intersection of thought, emotional urgency, and playful rebellion.
Born to Vietnamese parents and raised in Poland, she grew up between Warsaw’s vibrant theater scene and the warmth of her family home in Hanoi.
From spending countless evenings at local playhouses to creating playful skits as a teenager at Ognisko Teatralne “u Machulskich,” Maia’s early encounters
with theater still shape the way she approaches her craft: valuing collaboration, contradictions, and work that looks beyond literal depictions of reality.
Currently in her final year of pursuing her MFA in Acting at UC San Diego, Maia is also a proud graduate of Stanford University,
where she earned degrees in Theater and Performance Studies as well as Computer Science. At Stanford, she deepened her love of classics and experimentation,
performing with the Asian American Theater Project (AATP), the Stanford Shakespeare Company, and Theater Lab. With her technical experience in scientific research,
and internships at Bay Area startups, Maia has learned to combine an artist’s heart with an engineer’s precision,
experiencing the best of both worlds (thank you, Hannah Montana).
As a performer, Maia is drawn to characters that are often caught between control and collapse.
She is attracted to stories that span genres but remain character-driven, balancing emotional intensity with absurdity or tragedy with satire.
Some of her acting credits include: peerless (M), The Rogues’ Trial (John Cricket), Vinegar Tom (Margery), Cancelina (Meg),
Everybody (Somebody), The Seagull (u/s Arkadina/Masha), and Indian Princesses (u/s Samantha).
Outside of acting, Maia has written and directed short performance pieces and one-acts. Through writing, she explores family, power, the tension between heart and mind,
and the search for meaning. Her most recent work includes writing and directing her own adaptation of a 13th-century Chinese play, Snow in Midsummer.
She has also served as an Assistant Director to Haruna Lee's Beyond the Wound Is A Portal and interned as a production assistant in New York's Target Margin Theater.
She often travels with her ukulele, plays the piano and writes songs in her spare time.
Maia is a recipient of the Louis Sudler Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts (2022).
Learn more about Maia's acting, writing and directing projects by clicking on the button below.
Click below to download the resume and most recent headshot.
Selected and additional photos from workshops and artistic projects. To see and learn more, visit the projects page below.
play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
(phot. Stephen Hitchcock)
(phot. Nam Nguyễn)
play by Jiehae Park / dir. Olivia Popp
(phot. Frank Chen)
play by Ariano Suassuna / dir. Ludmila de Brito
(phot. Rich Soublet)
(phot. Nam Nguyễn)
play by Caryl Churchill / dir. Allie Moss
(phot. Rich Soublet)
play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins / dir. Michael Rau
(phot. Frank Chen)
play by Caryl Churchill / dir. Allie Moss
(phot. Rich Soublet)
Actor's Intensive at the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław and Brzezinka (Grotowski's Laboratory Theatre Base).
(phot. Tobiasz Papuczys)
play by Ariano Suassuna / dir. Ludmila de Brito
(phot. Rich Soublet)
Actor's Intensive at the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław and Brzezinka (Grotowski's Laboratory Theatre Base).
(phot. Tobiasz Papuczys)
play by William Shakespeare / dir. Ludmila de Brito
(phot. Rich Soublet)
play by Caryl Churchill / dir. Allie Moss
(phot. Rich Soublet)
(phot. Nam Nguyễn)
play by Ariano Suassuna / dir. Ludmila de Brito
(phot. Rich Soublet)
(phot. Nam Nguyễn)
play by Beth Hyland / dir. Allie Moss
(phot. Rich Soublet)
play by Ariano Suassuna / dir. Ludmila de Brito
(phot. Rich Soublet)
play by Caryl Churchill / dir. Allie Moss
(phot. Rich Soublet)
play by Beth Hyland / dir. Allie Moss
(phot. Rich Soublet)
Actor's Intensive at the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław and Brzezinka (Grotowski's Laboratory Theatre Base).
(phot. Tobiasz Papuczys)
play by Jiehae Park / dir. Olivia Popp
(phot. Frank Chen)
play by Jiehae Park / dir. Olivia Popp
(phot. Frank Chen)
(phot. Nam Nguyễn)
play by Beth Hyland / dir. Allie Moss
(phot. Rich Soublet)
(phot. Nam Nguyễn)
play by William Shakespeare / dir. Noah Bennett
(phot. Frank Chen)
(phot. Nam Nguyễn)
Actor's Intensive at the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław and Brzezinka (Grotowski's Laboratory Theatre Base).
(phot. Tobiasz Papuczys)
The video below includes Kayleen's monologue from Gruesome Playground by Rajiv Joseph, Pauline's monologue from A Bright New Boise by Samuel Hunter, and 16 bars of Cut, Print... Moving On by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (from musical TV Show SMASH). For any additional materials, please contact Maia via email.
Role: John Cricket
Role: Izzy
Role: Poppy
Role: Margery
Director/Playwright
Role: Meg
Role: SOMEBODY (Everybody/Friendship/Kinship/Cousin/ Stuff/Evil/Strength/Beauty/Senses/Mind)
Role: M
Moth/Snug
Role: Euphrosyne/Chorus
Role: John Cricket
The Rogues' Trial by Ariano Suassuna is a beloved Brazilian "morality" play set in the drylands - With a blend of Commedia, Clowning, and Brazilian folktales, we follow mischievous John Cricket and his bestie, Chicó, as they navigate broken systems of power.
Role: Izzy
Ansel and Izzy are at a wedding neither of them wants to be at. They’re also stuck in a time loop neither can get out of.
Over the course of an evening – or maybe an eternity – they must revisit their situationship, a complicated history, and a lifetime of regrets and unspoken feelings before it’s too late.
NERVE ENDINGS looks at the cyclical nature of elationships and what it takes to mend a severed connection.
Role: Poppy
Kara and Poppy were best friends - until they weren’t.
After a mysterious falling out, they reunite and try to rebuild their friendship, but unfinished business keeps getting in the way.
What really happened with She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named? And what other secrets are they keeping from one another?
DIRTY MARTINI looks at what happens when the people closest to you are not who you think they are and what it really means to be a good friend.
Role: Margery
Vinegar Tom is famously described by Caryl Churchill as “a play about witches with no witches in it.” Instead of magic this play explores misogyny and how society punishes women who dare to resist social control. Peppered with modern punk songs, this story of 17th century women accused of witchcraft for rejecting social norms, hits remarkably close to home.
Stanford TAPS Developmental Stage (in collaboration w/ TheaterLab)
Playwright/Director
Snow in Midsummer is a tragicomic and anachronistic experimentation on the original medieval Chinese play of the same title. Bridging the traditional Confucian past of China with the contemporary struggles of entering adulthood, the play deals with a conflict that weighs heavily on each of our lives: how do we love our close ones while honoring the needs, wants, and desires of our own?
Filled with absurdity, TikTok dances, and Chinese EDM music against the backdrops of Yuan Dynasty China, Snow in Midsummer is an exploration of generational divide, and familial obligations. It is a story about the struggle of amending the individual with the collective. How do you find your own voice and seek your own footing in a violently suppressing world that keeps trying to tell you who and what you are?
Learn more about the process.
Clips and video footage of the show available upon request.
Wagner New Play Festival
Role: Meg
A comedy about fame, cancel culture, and the lengths we'll go for redemption, CANCELINA asks who we really
are when everything is stripped away.
Alina Jay is a former tween star turned singer/actress.
When she's caught kissing her much-older, married co-star the internet turns on her.
Now Alina's team, led by her best friend/assistant, Meg, must do whatever it takes to get Alina back on top.
Role: SOMEBODY (role decided by lottery each night)
A 2018 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by TAPS Artistic Director Prof. Michael Rau. This modern riff on the fifteenth-century morality play Everyman follows Everybody (chosen from amongst the cast by lottery at each performance) as they journey through life's greatest mystery — the meaning of living.
In Everybody, the lottery of life is made literal: the actors' roles, including the eponymous protagonist, are decided by lottery each night. There are 120 possible casting permutations, making it likely that the show you see is unfolding, before your eyes, for the first time.
Asian American Theater Project
Role: M
Asian-American twin sisters M and L will do whatever it takes to win a spot at The College, but how far will they really go? A dark, edgy take on the ambitious and cut-throat world of the college admissions process, peerless explores the startling depth of issues surrounding cultural identity, mortality, academic institutions, and family, with no lack of sardonic wit.
The Stanford Shakespeare Company
Role: Moth Snug
Role: Euphrosyne/Chorus
Written by Sarah Ruhl, Orlando, moves through centuries of life, gender norms and expectations while constantly reaching to understand the person they used to be, the person they are now, and the person they are in the process of becoming.
